Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility ;).

Since its launch in November 2007, Android has not only dramatically increased consumer choice but also improved the entire mobile experience for users. Today, more than 150 million Android devices have been activated worldwide—with over 550,000 devices now lit up every day—through a network of about 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers in 123 countries. Given Android’s phenomenal success, we are always looking for new ways to supercharge the Android ecosystem. That is why I am so excited today to announce that we have agreed to acquire Motorola. 

Motorola has a history of over 80 years of innovation in communications technology and products, and in the development of intellectual property, which have helped drive the remarkable revolution in mobile computing we are all enjoying today. Its many industry milestones include the introduction of the world’s first portable cell phone nearly 30 years ago, and the StarTAC—the smallest and lightest phone on earth at time of launch. In 2007, Motorola was a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance that worked to make Android the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices. I have loved my Motorola phones from the StarTAC era up to the current DROIDs.

In 2008, Motorola bet big on Android as the sole operating system across all of its smartphone devices. It was a smart bet and we’re thrilled at the success they’ve achieved so far. We believe that their mobile business is on an upward trajectory and poised for explosive growth.

Motorola is also a market leader in the home devices and video solutions business. With the transition to Internet Protocol, we are excited to work together with Motorola and the industry to support our partners and cooperate with them to accelerate innovation in this space.

Motorola’s total commitment to Android in mobile devices is one of many reasons that there is a natural fit between our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers everywhere.

This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.

We recently explained how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

The combination of Google and Motorola will not only supercharge Android, but will also enhance competition and offer consumers accelerating innovation, greater choice, and wonderful user experiences. I am confident that these great experiences will create huge value for shareholders.

I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers.

Posted by Larry Page, CEO

Who said? Larry Page said ;).

Wi-Fi cars hitting the information superhighway ;).

More cars are hitting the information superhighway thanks to new automotive Wi-Fi technology that allows vehicles to become rolling “hot spots.”

Analysts say consumers are warming to the notion of more connectivity in their cars, with “apps” for information and entertainment just as they have with their smartphones or tablet computers.

“Initially, putting Internet access in the car sounds like a distraction and frivolous but as time passes it will become a part of our lives and we will feel uncomfortable not having access,” said Jeff Kagan, an independent telecoms analyst.

“I think this is going to grow into a vibrant sector.”

Market research firm iSuppli said it expects a surge in worldwide shipments of car Wi-Fi systems to 7.2 million units by 2017, from just 174,000 in 2010.

Wi-Fi has been around for several years as an aftermarket accessory but many major manufacturers now offer some form of Wi-Fi or are developing it.

Ford has been offering Wi-Fi in selected models since 2010 and some form of Internet access is also offered by many other major automakers including General Motors, BMW, Audi, Saab and Chrysler.

In mid-March, Finnish telecom giant Nokia announced the launch of a Car Connectivity Consortium of 11 companies with common technical standards, including vehicle manufacturers Daimler, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Toyota, and Volkswagen.

Autonet Mobile, a California-based firm that touts itself as the “first Internet-based telematics and applications service platform” for the auto market, has over 10,000 US customers using its CarFi service at $29 a month, said chief executive Sterling Pratz.

The group recently signed agreements with General Motors and Subaru.

Pratz told AFP that consumers are looking for better entertainment options for passengers in their vehicles and use Wi-Fi for videos, gaming and social networking.

“They feel there is a better way to stay entertained in the car compared with the DVD player. They lead a connected lifestyle and when they get in the car they feel disconnected,” he said.

A next step, Pratz said, is other types of applications that can allow parents to monitor speeds of their teen drivers and to find their car if it is stolen.

Autonet, which started in 2005 and has funding from venture capital firms, only operates in the US market but Pratz says he plans talks with European carmakers and is considering Asia as well.

In Europe, Audi is using a system from Marvell Technology and Harman Automotive to create a factory-installed mobile hotspot, allowing up to eight devices to be connected.

“I believe today’s consumers want the convenience of seamless connectivity and live content whenever and wherever they choose — whether in the home, office, classroom or automobile,” said Weili Dai, Marvell’s co-founder and vice president in announcing the system.

“Finally, the car is connected to the rest of our lives.”

Saab meanwhile has announced its own system based on Google’s Android operating system, dubbed IQon, touted as “a completely new car infotainment user experience.”

The Swedish automaker will allow third-party developers to develop “apps” by accessing 500 signals from different sensors in the vehicle.

“With Saab IQon, there are no limits to the potential for innovation,” said Saab’s Johan Formgren. “We will be inviting the global Android developer community to use their imagination and ingenuity.”

Analysts say the market is likely to grow as more applications become available — for entertainment, navigation or even for diagnostics of the automobile.

Yet a key question for developers of the technology is whether to offer Wi-Fi as a separate data system or allow consumers to bring their own.

Ford’s Wi-Fi system called MyFord Touch, which is added to its SYNC connectivity for mobile phones and music players, offers no separate data plan but instead allows consumers to plug in their own devices — smartphones, tablet computers or wireless cards.

This not only allows consumers to avoid a new data fee but enables easier adaption of a rapidly changing market for wireless devices, said Ford spokesman Alan Hall.

“We created the ability for a customer to bring in their 3G and 4G devices, and the car can take that signal and turn it into a Wi-Fi signal for four or five passengers in the car,” Hall told AFP.

Ford expects to have this Wi-Fi system on 80 percent of its cars sold in North America within four years, Hall said, and is also launching the system globally next year.

Doug Newcomb of the auto research firm Edmunds.com said the Ford strategy appears to make more sense rather than asking customers to pay an additional monthly data subscription.

“Several years ago before smartphones and the iPad, (a separate Wi-Fi system) might have made more sense,” Newcomb said.

“Now, people are saying, ‘If I have an iPad with 3G why would I need this in the car, why should I pay for another data plan?’… I think the focus now will be how to incorporate the smartphone into the vehicle.”

Who said? Rob Lever said ;).

China’s WoPhone to compete with iOS and Android OS ;).

China Unicom, one of China’s three largest wireless operators, plans to introduce its own mobile operating system to compete head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android OS in China.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the wireless operator, which is building a third-generation wireless network that competes with China Mobile and China Telecom, is developing a new mobile OS brand known as WoPhone.

The new operating system is based on Linux, and it’s geared toward mobile handsets and tablets. Companies that plan to build devices using the new OS include China’s ZTE, Huawei Technologies and TCL. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, US-based Motorola, and Taiwan’s HTC are also building devices using the new OS, China Unicom’s parent company, China United Network Communications Group, said in a statement on Monday.

For more on this story, read China Unicom to take on Apple, Google with OS on CNET News

Who said? Marguerite Reardon said ;).

Smart Phone OS Breakdown: Pretty Colors Edition ;).

Now this is how you make a chart. Cold hard facts and figures are already irresistible, but Nielsen has done one better by organizing data about  US smart phone subscribers into attractive, colorful infographics. The chart shows the distribution of mobile operating systems by manufacturer, which gives Apple and RIM some nice big bars for their respective platforms. With their iPhone and Blackberry products, each company controls 27% of the US smartphone market. HTC is the next most successful manufacturer, with a 12% market share for its Android devices and 7% for its Windows Phone 7 handsets.

When considering OS penetration, Android managed to squeak past the iPhone and Blackberry marketshare with a leading 29% cut. Windows Phone 7 isn’t doing too badly for itself–10% seems like a decent portion of the market for such a young OS. A second chart, posted below, demonstrates the smart phone breakdown by age.

These results are remarkably even–while Windows Phone 7, webOS and Symbian obviously post smaller numbers, almost every bar shows a pretty consistent distribution of phones among age groups. Android has a 2% advantage in the 18-24 range, while RIM has a modest 1% edge among 45-54-year-olds.

Who said? Wesley Fenlon said ;).

RIM, Nokia, DoCoMo united against Google’s menace ;).

Google [1]’s growing influence in the mobile [2] industry is clearly proving worrisome to some established device makers and operators, a few of whom put up a united front against the search giant during a round table at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday.

Leaders of Research In Motion, Nokia, and NTT DoCoMo talked about their strategies for working together to face the threat.

[ iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android? Whatever handheld you use or manage, turn to InfoWorld for the latest developments. Subscribe to InfoWorld’s Mobilize newsletter [3] today. ]

Nokia is aiming for “an environment where the relationship between the services providers, handset manufacturers, and operators are in an appropriate balance,” said Stephen Elop, Nokia’s CEO. “Our philosophy is to be the most operator friendly,” he said.

Google presents a conundrum for some of the established companies in the mobile industry. Its Android [4] software helped hardware makers such as Motorola turn around their fortunes and has helped operators sell more data contracts. But other phone makers, like Nokia, opted not to use Android [5] for fear that the platform would corner too much of the market and stifle innovation.

Google is also offering lots of services to mobile users that mobile operators would prefer to offer.

“What’s most important for the network operators is how to avoid being reduced to a dumb pipe,” said Ryuji Yamada, president and CEO of NTT DoCoMo. “We are susceptible more than ever to the risk of becoming a dump pipe … and we are determined to avoid that by all means.”

He said one way to avoid that fate is for operators to offer intelligent services from the cloud. But the example he gave is a DoCoMo service that translates languages, similar to one that Google demonstrated at this same conference last year, noted Ben Wood, an analyst with CCS Insight.

Yamada acknowledged that such services can be offered by third parties but didn’t say much about how the operator might beat out Google. “It’s a race between these two different camps,” he said. “Being the network operator, we are in the best position to know what the network is capable of.”

RIM [6] appears to be working hard to try to help operators ward off competition from the likes of Google and others. “There may have to be a Google translation service and a Nokia location service but at the end of the day it better be a DoCoMo service overarching [that directs customers] to their bill and branding and distribution or the alternative is a bit pipe with a programmable SIM,” RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said.

RIM this week rolled out some new capabilities aimed at helping operators hold on to their relationships with customers. For instance, it offers the capability for operators to let customers “gift” applications or airtime to others, with the charges showing up on their mobile bill. RIM also announced that Telefónica and Vodafone would start letting users pay for applications from the RIM application store on their regular bills.

Operators want to bill customers because they think it helps build a relationship with users and because it could allow for new sources of revenue. With Apple and Android, for instance, most end users pay for apps with their credit cards through the respective application stores and so the operator doesn’t get a share of the revenue from apps.

These days, any time a CEO from a company that provides services to end users meets with an operator, the operator is trying to size up the goals of that company, Balsillie said. The operators are wondering if they can trust the company and if its business model has a sustainable business structure for the operator, he said.

“The structure of the industry is very much in flux,” Balsillie said. He said the issue of what role the operator will play is the most relevant issue of the industry currently.

Who said? Nancy Gohring said ;).

2011 will be the year Android explodes ;).

Ever-improving networks and a big hardware announcement that will send handset prices plummeting both point to smartphone growth in 2011 that could totally eclipse anything we’ve seen before.

Smartphones have been growing at an unbelievable clip over the past year but they still account for only around a third of all phones in the US and an even smaller percentage internationally.  In developing countries, the price of smartphones, aside from some ‘quasi-smart’ Nokias (NOK) are out of reach for all but the elite. India and China each have billion plus populations and growing middle classes, but neither country is even at a 10% market penetration of smartphones.

Globally, market intelligence firm IDC counted 269.6 million smartphones sold this year, compared to the 173.5 million units shipped in 2009.

In 2011, we might see half a billion phones sold worldwide.  Smartphones will likely blow by traditional computers next year as the way most of the world gains access to the Internet.

Two major factors will drive this, in tandem: Wireless infrastructure is getting better every day, and hardware is getting cheaper.  Cheaper hardware will eliminate the need for subsidies and therefore will improve competition between carriers, and spur them to improve their networks.  Google (GOOG) Android head Andy Rubin calls this a ‘perfect storm‘ for smartphone adoption.

A closer look at price: In 2010, the cheapest mainstream Smartphone was just below $200(unsubsidized by a carrier contract– the way most of the world buys its phones). Some extremely cheap (but feature rich) Chinese brands have recently fallen to around $150. But based on the hardware announcements we’re seeing, including one big player in particular that price will be cut in half:

 

Broadcom (BRCM)  last week announced its BCM2157 – Mass-Market 3G HSDPA “Android” Baseband chipset.  The platform provides everything a modern smartphone builder needs: a dual core ARM processor, Bluetooth, GPS, support for up to a 5-megapixel camera, support for capacitive HVGA (320×480 like iPhone 3GS) or or WQVGA (~240×400) displays.  That’s pretty much your current baseline Android smartphone, like the Samsung Intercept.

The chipset will work on AT&T (T) and T-Mobile’s 3G networks in the US and on global GSM providers.

It is interesting to note that Broadcom is marketing this hardware specifically at Android OEMs, though theoretically any smartphone OS could be built on top of it.  Android is clearly the platform for growth on the low end.

I had a chance to speak with Jim Tran, VP/GM – Handset Line of Business for Broadcom, who was able to elaborate on the details of the new processor and what it meant for the industry.  Here are some of Broadcom’s bullet points:

• The BCM2157 baseband, since it combines many functions on one chip, is able to run more efficiently, meaning less battery power will be needed than on current basic handsets
• Low-cost, low-power, 65 nm digital CMOS process means the silicon will be cheap
• The dual-core processors will run at 500-800mhz.
• Supports portable Wifi hotspot and Android 2.2 and up

But the kicker is the price.  Tran says that phones made from the BCM2157 chipset will retail for under $100 and may dip as low as $75.  Those devices should debut in just 3-6 months (and we might hear about them next month at CES).

By this time next year, Broadcom says it will release a follow-up chip that will allow WVGA displays and as much power as today’s high-end Smartphones at the same $75-$100 prices.  That Nexus S that costs $530 now off contract will cost just a fraction of that in just one year.

Broadcom isn’t the only chipmaker taking aim at this new market.  There is another chipmaker out of China building the same type of chipset for 3G EVDO Rev. A, the type of network that Sprint and Verizon use.  They also say that they can get retail prices below $100.

To be clear, That sub $100 price is not the cost of materials, it is the suggested retail price after the manufacturers (and carriers) have taken their profits.

Those prices will have many feature phone users saddling up with smartphones. And they may open the emerging Asian markets, like India and China, to smartphone customers on a large scale, for the first time ever. That means many more smartphone users and many more Google and Android users, too.

How cheap smartphones change the American cell phone market

Perhaps more importantly, at $100, many first-world shoppers will forgo the subsidized two year contracts and instead choose month to month plans.  That price point takes the power away from the carriers.  If T-Mobile is having a special and I can just take my AT&T phone over without being hit with early termination fees, the carriers are much more likely to compete for customers.

That, in turn will likely push data prices down.  We are already starting to see this happen.  Virgin offers a $25/month unlimited data plan off contract.  T-Mobile offers a limited $10 date plan off contract.  AT&T has tiers that start very low.

Consumers used to feature phone monthly costs of $30/month may even opt to forgo wireless data altogether, instead choosing to use the smartphone’s built in Wifi radio to surf near-ubiquitous Wifi in homes, at work and about town.  To entice low end smartphone users away from just using Wifi, carriers will have to make affordable data plans.

Cheap smartphones could change the way carriers price contracts here in the U.S.

Whatever the case, if you thought Android going from 30,000 activations a day to 300,000 activations/day was impressive, 2011 might be an even bigger growth year for Android.

Growth targets are just starting to trickle out, but HTC, who make high end Android devices and a few Windows Phone 7 devices expect to triple their 2010 output in 2011. Yet if things play out the way Rubin, Google, Broadcom and HTC hope, even that may wind up being a conservative estimate for Android growth. What’s most interesting is that unless Apple (AAPL) has a plan to keep up, their iPhone, once one of the only usable smartphone games in town, may wind up back where most Apple products are slotted– at the top of the market, affordable only to those willing and able to pay a premium for Steve Jobs’ aesthetic sensibilities.

 

Who said? Seth Weintraub said ;).

Screenshot Tour of Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Built for Tablets ;).

Google gave us a glimpse of Android 3.0 Honeycomb earlier this year, but today they released more details on the upcoming OS. Here’s a look through what we can expect. Spoiler alert: It’s awesome, and it fixes many of Android’s biggest annoyances.

The Tablet UI

The biggest change in Android 3.0 is the general layout of the UI. Since it’s built specifically for tablets, you have much more space on your home screen for icons and widgets. This is a pretty stark contrast to the iPad, which just enlarged the iPhone’s 4×4 grid with big, spaced out icons—as you can see in the screenshot above, you actually have a much denser grid than you would on an Android phone, meaning you can pack a whole lot of stuff into one home screen.

The Notification Bar

The notification bar has been moved to the bottom of the screen, and they’ve added a few navigation buttons to it that seem to take the place of the capacative hardware buttons we all know and love on our Android phones. The three buttons, from left to right, are Back, Home, and Recent Apps. The new recent apps window is pretty handy, taking advantage of the extra space to show you the current state of each running app.

The Home Screens

The home screens themselves are pretty similar to regular Android as far as functionality—you can add app shortcuts and widgets wherever you want, swipe between five different screens, and expand your app drawer to access anything not already on the home screens. That said, the entire thing has this new 3D look to it that’s really awesome (which we caught a glimpse of in our first look). As long as the hardware can keep up with the new UI, it’ll be pretty awesome (we all remember how laggy the original Motorola Droid was).

The Action Bar

Probably the most welcome change in the new UI, however, is what Google is calling the Action Bar. In every application, the top bar is reserved for contextual options, navigation, or other buttons. The Email app, for example, has a new message button and a refresh button at the top. When you select a message, that action bar changes to display a move to folder button, a mark as read button, a star message button, and a delete button. Of course, it also has dropdown menus for any buttons that overflow off to the side.

Why is this so awesome? These are the kinds of buttons that, on the 2.0 cycle of Android, are usually buried in menus that you access with your phones Menu button. Now, instead of having to hit Menu (and God forbid a “More” button), those options will be available right at the top of your screen. Really, this is one of my biggest complaints about Android, and it makes me wonder why we don’t have this action bar in 2.x, too.

Keyboard and Copy/Paste

The new soft keyboard is an improvement over the iteration we’re all familiar with, including larger, reshaped keys for easier targeting. What’s cooler is that it also includes some keys we’re more familiar with on full keyboards, like Tab, which will make us desktop users more comfortable.

Copy and paste on Android has never been the most friendly feature, but 3.0 takes a step in the right direction by making it a much faster affair: just long-press on any text and it will select that word. From there, you can drag the selection area to include more text. The action bar will also show Select All, Cut, Copy and Share buttons while you’re selecting text too, which is fantastic (seriously, why isn’t that action bar in Android already?). Overall, working with text in Android 3.0 is going to be a much more pleasant experience.

Tablet-Optimized Core Apps

There aren’t any Google apps in the SDK (like Gmail or Google Talk), but the non-Google core apps like the Browser, Camera, Contacts, and Email have all been updated to more efficiently use the extra space you’ll get with a tablet. The browser has tabs built in (hallelujah!), bookmark syncing with Chrome (double hallelujah!), Incognito mode (ahem), and automatic sign in to Google sites using the Google account tied to your device. I don’t need to tell you guys how cool all these features are. These are usually things we have to download an alternate browser for, both on Android and iOS. This is a big step forward.

The other core apps aren’t quite as revolutionary, but still nicely redesigned. The camera app is definitely cool (see above), and the Contacts and Email app are basically two-pane versions of the same apps we already know and love—not unlike the difference between the iPhone and iPad versions of Contacts and Mail in iOS. They’re a good use of space, but nothing revolutionary (unless you’re counting the aforementioned action bar that I still can’t get over).

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The most recent Android 3.0 SDK and screenshots over at the Android Developers site barely scratch the surface of the brand new OS, but I gotta say, it looks really exciting. I’m a happy iPad user that, until today, was 100% uninterested in an Android tablet, but I’ve eaten my words for breakfast. Plus, a lot of these features fix some of Android’s biggest annoyances, so if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get to see some of them in the smartphone versions of Android. Here’s hoping.

What do you guys think? Do you like the look of the new Android OS, or do you still have reservations about Android tablets? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Android 3.0 Platform Highlights [Android Developers]

 

Who said? Whitson Gordon said ;).

Apple COO Tim Cook on Android, Verizon, and More ;).

January 18, 2011

[On iPhone backlogs and ensuring sufficient supply.]

As I mentioned on last quarter’s call, we made a very bold bet on taking iPhone capacity for the September quarter, with the new iPhone 4 in the line-up, to 14 million. And as you may remember, we sold over 14 million in total iPhones. It was a fantastic quarter. And that was up from a previous number that was in the eight-ish range. We were able to step that up in this past quarter to over 16 million. And so we were able to increase over two million. And we obviously have continued to work on increasing this further. But as with all good things, it takes some time to do that.

Apple’s Jobs Takes Medical Leave; Cook in Charge with iPad 2, iPhone 5 in Wings
Verizon vs. AT&T: Which Can Feed iPhone’s Need for Speed?

Relative to Verizon (VZ), we are thrilled to offer the iPhone 4 to Verizon’s 93 million customers as well as any new customers who want an iPhone 4 on Verizon. And we’re going to do anything possible to get the iPhones into as many hand of those customers as possible.

[How comfortable are you with the availability of iPhones and iPads, and do you still see shortages?]

On iPad, we increased dramatically last quarter. We sold 7.3 [million], the previous quarter we were in the low fours, as you know. That did get us in supply/demand balance and also allowed us to expand to a total of 46 countries, which added 20 during the quarter. And we’re confident enough to add another 15 countries during the month of January, which will take us over 60. So we feel very, very good about the progress that we’ve made here.

Relative to iPhone 4, I also feel very, very good about what we’ve been able to do–however, it’s not enough. We do still have a significant backlog. We are working around the clock to build more. I feel great that the demand is so high, but at this point I’m not going to predict when supply and demand will meet. We believe the reaction and results from the Verizon customers will be huge. And so I don’t want to give a prediction right now on when supply and demand will cross.

[Sequential growth in Asia-Pacific is impressive. What’s driving that?]

Of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), we several years ago identified China as our top priority and we put enormous energy into China, and the results of that have been absolutely staggering. To give you some numbers there… (And we look at Greater China as a region: Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.) The revenue from Greater China for Apple (AAPL) for last quarter was $2.6 billion, which was up 4x from the prior-year quarter. And to further, just an exclamation point beside that, we did a little over $3 billion for the entire year of fiscal year ’10. So we’re very proud of the team and the results that we’ve gotten there.

Korea has also been a very, very good market for us. We had an outstanding Q1 there, primarily driven by iPhone and iPad. And there are several other Asian countries doing extremely well. Japan is not in the segment that you’re looking at, but Japan by itself, the revenue was up 83 percent year over year. And you’re familiar with the Japanese economy and the growth there, to grow 83 percent on the base that we’re doing, is stunning. And so we are placing more and more resource in these areas and continue to look for expansion possibilities throughout Asia.

[I was wondering if there’s any insight you can give us in terms of what your long-term business plan is, in terms of product roadmap.]

Well, you know, that’s all part of the magic of Apple. And I don’t want to let anybody know our magic, because I don’t want anybody copying it. What I would tell you is that in my view, Apple is doing its best work ever. That we are all very happy with product pipeline, and the team here has an unparalleled breadth and depth of talent and a culture of innovation that Steve has driven in the company, and excellence has become a habit. And so we feel very, very confident about the future of the company.

I would also note, for those people who haven’t thought about it, we’ve done outstanding in our Mac business. We’ve had 19 quarters straight of growing faster than the market. But we still have a relatively low share of a very large PC market, despite having great momentum there. And so it would seem like there is enormous opportunity still there.

We have relatively low share in the handset market. The handset market is well over a billion units a year, and the smartphone market is growing faster than a weed. And so there’s enormous opportunity here, and we have incredible momentum in that space.

iPad just got started, it’s a new category, we sold almost 15 million through the first three quarters, and we believe the market is huge. IDC, I saw this morning, is predicting it to quadruple in two years. I don’t know what to predict in terms of specific numbers. However, we believe it’s a huge market, as we’ve said before. And so we’re in some great markets, some fast-moving markets, we have the best products we’ve ever done, and an incredible product pipeline. We feel very, very confident.

[Which component areas are you making long-term commitments in?]

It’s something I don’t want to give out, because I view it as a competitive… something I just don’t want our competition knowing. But let me talk about it in general, and hopefully that will suffice. From our point of view, on the design side, we design components where we believe we can innovate beyond what’s available in the market. The most recent example of this is the A4 chip. But with the A4 chip, we didn’t feel like we had to invest in the fab itself and build a fab, because we felt like there were good options in the market for doing that, but not good options in terms of buying a design, so we really focused on design.

On the operational side of the house, as you probably remember, we’ve historically entered into certain agreements with different people to secure supply and other benefits. The largest one in the recent past has been, we signed a deal with several flash [memory] suppliers back in the end of 2005 that totaled over a billion dollars, because we anticipated that flash would become increasingly important across our entire product line and increasingly important to the industry. And so we wanted to secure supply for our company. We think that was an absolutely fantastic use of Apple’s cash, and we constantly look for more of these. And so in the past several quarters, we’ve identified another area and come to some recent agreements that Peter talked about in his opening comments. These payments consist of both pre-payments and capital for process equipment and tooling. And similar to the flash agreement, they’re focused in an area that we feel is very strategic. And so I’d prefer not to go into more detail about what specific area it’s in, but it’s the same kind of thinking that led us to those deals.

[Can you comment on how you’re currently viewing the competitive tablet landscape?]

If you look at what’s shipping today, there’s not much out there, as you know. Generally speaking, there’s two kind of groups that are on the market today. The ones that are using Windows-based operating system are generally fairly big and heavy and expensive, they have very weak battery life, they require a keyboard or a stylus as an input device. And from our point of view and what we’ve seen, customers are frankly not interested in them.

Then you have the Android tablets, and the variety that are out shipping today, the operating system wasn’t really designed for a tablet, and Google (GOOG) has said this. This is not just an Apple view by any means. And so you wind up having a size of tablet that is less than what we believe is reasonable or even one that would provide what we feel is a “real tablet experience.” So basically you wind up with a scaled-up smartphone, which is a bizarre product, in our view.

So those are the two that are shipping today, and frankly speaking, it’s hard for me to understand, if somebody does a side-by-side with an iPad, I think some enormous percentage of people are going to select an iPad there. Those are not tablets that we have any concern on.

The next-generation Android tablets, which are primarily what you mentioned in terms of CES, there’s nothing shipping yet, and so I don’t know. Generally they lack performance specs, they lack prices, they lack timing, so today they’re vapor. We’ll assess them as they come out, however, we’re not sitting still. And we have a huge first-mover advantage. And we have an incredible user experience, from iTunes to the App Store, and an enormous number of apps, and a huge ecosystem. And so we’re very, very confident with entering into a fight with anyone.

[What might change in terms of iPhone exclusivity and movement to other carriers, worldwide?]

We’re always looking and assessing in every country who we should be doing business with and exploring different deals and arrangements, etc. And so, we’ll continue to do that. What I’ve said before, and we have seen this in every case literally that we’ve done, is where we’ve moved from a exclusive carrier arrangement to a dual- or multi-carrier arrangement, our growth has changed significantly and our market share has increased. That doesn’t mean that would happen in every country, nor does it mean that we’re just out doing that in every country. We look at each one individually. Each market has its own individual characteristics, and parameters, and technology.

On the CDMA phone specifically, I don’t have any specific thing to announce today other than we are truly thrilled to be working with the Verizon team. They have built quite a company, and earned a great deal of respect from their customers, and some of them have waited a long time to get iPhone, and we’re very, very happy to give them iPhone. And any other customers, that are non-Verizon customers that wish to buy an iPhone. We’re also very happy that we’ve signed a multi-year non-exclusive deal with AT&T. And so we’re very happy that we will have shortly a dual-carrier setup in the U.S.

I’ve generally found, people really want to do business with us, and their customers very much desire to have the iPhone. I don’t really see a lack of desire. I don’t want to comment about any specific country, because I view any conversations that we have going as confidential in nature. It is true, as you said, that we are not under a contractual exclusivity now in any country in the world. The last one was the United States. We have moved away from those. I can guarantee you that we always are looking at opportunities to grow. Of course in the very short term, I would also remind you that we’re constrained on iPhone 4 and we’re working around the clock to get as many of these out to our existing partners as we can.

[What’s going on regarding the Mac? And will are iPads cannibalizing Mac sales?]

What we saw on the Mac this quarter, we grew 23 percent at the worldwide level, and that is compared to a market growth of only three [percent]. And so we grew almost either times the market rate of growth, which I think is stunning. And every region outgrew the market, so it wasn’t just one region. Asia/Pacific led the growth with a whopping 67 percent year-over-year increase, and that’s almost ten times what the market did there, to put it in context. Japan grew at 56 percent, which is about six times the market. And Europe and the United States both grew in double digits, despite both markets contracting overall. And so we did significantly better than the market in every major region. And we’re very proud of that.

Now, was there any cannibalization by iPad? Honestly, I don’t know for sure, but yes, I think there is some cannibalization. But I also think there is a halo effect. As we’ve seen on the Mac by the iPod some years ago, I think there is a halo effect from Apple product to Apple product. And of course we have introduced millions of people in Asia to Apple through the iPhone. And we’re now introducing many more through the iPad, and I think some of those decide to buy a Mac. And so when you look at the Mac growth in Asia at 67 percent, and you look at the Japan growth at 56 and you look at the U.S. and Europe growing at double digit, against shrinking markets, if this is cannibalization, it feels pretty good.

If the iPad or tablets do cannibalize the PC market, keep in mind that we have low share of the PC market, so the other guys lose a lot more, and we have a lot more to win because of that. Honestly, cannibalization is not something that we are spending one minute on here. The iPad teams are building the best iPad for the future, and the Mac teams are building the best Mac, and I can tell you that both groups believe that they can continue to grow and do great stuff. And I believe that.

[So are the two platforms merging into one?]

Part of the magic of Apple is that there’s not high walls between these product groups. They like each other, talk to each other, they’re of the same DNA, they want to build the best products in the world. So if one has a great idea, there’s not a “not invented here” in the other group. And so one of the key learnings from the iPad was that people love instant on. They really love that. And so the MacBook Air incorporated that. And that’s just one simple example, but there are tons of examples throughout all of our products where something started on one and went to a different one. And it’s not always in the same direction, either. It can start on the phone and then flow forward, it can start on the iPad and flow, and so on, and so forth.

And so, that’s part of the way we run the company. I think Steve said it great when he said, “If the Mac company were a separate company, and the iPad company were a separate company, what would the Mac company build to compete with the iPad? I think the answer is the MacBook Air.” And I think that’s a phenomenal insight, I think a great way to look at it. It’s not that the groups are competing, they’re sharing. And coming up with the incredible products that people really want.

[Any other observations about your battle with Android?]

If you look at the iPhone portion, we had record sales on iPhone with 16.2 million units sold in the quarter. Peter [Oppenheimer] said we believe we could’ve sold more if we had more supply. From the market estimates that we’ve seen, it suggests we’ve moved faster than the market. Obviously we’re working around the clock on increasing supply. We’re continuing to expand countries and carriers. We’re getting enormous enterprise traction, with 88 percent of the Fortune 100, which is mind-blowing, I believe. 83 percent of the Fortune 500, 60 percent of the FT 100. So enterprise traction is gaining.

We have the highest customer [satisfaction] ratings in the industry, versus Android or RIM or anyone. We have the largest App Store, with over 300,000 apps. We’ve now sold over 160 million iOS devices. This is huge. And we fundamentally believe that our integrated approach delivers a far superior customer experience than the fragmented approach. And you can see this in a variety of ways, from fragmentation of a number of app stores out there, that people are going to pull their hair out because they’re going to have a variety of updating methodologies, a variety of payment methods, and slightly different derivatives. You can see from surveys that people are doing to see who is on the latest OS, and you’ll notice that the iOS is always off the charts on the percentage of people that have the latest version versus the other guys. We are launching with Verizon next month, we believe there’s a huge pent-up demand there. And we think that that will help us in the U.S.

The net net is that we think that our integrated approach is much better for the end user because it takes out all the complexity for the end user, instead of making the end user a system integrator themselves. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know very many people that want to be system integrators as a consumer or somebody in the enterprise. You know, I think that the more iPhones that we can get out there into people’s hands, the more people love them and I think we’ve got a very bright future. I think the same thing about iPad. It’s the same set of issues at the end of the day. The difference on iPad is that we’ve been running three quarters without any significant competition of any type. And I think the customer [satisfaction] ratings on the iPad are also off the charts. I don’t know if any of that is new. I doubt that it is. So I think we’re in a very good position.

© 2010 Mac Publishing LLC

Who said? by Macworld staff, Macworld said ;).

Android Task Killers are Dead—Here’s What You Should Be Doing ;).

As a general rule, people have a hard time dealing with change. Android, being perhaps the fastest changing mobile OS in history, can leave people in the dust as the platform evolves. Things don’t work the same from release to release. Some of this is user-facing, and people can adapt. But some changes are deeper system level alterations that people might not notice at first, and then might not understand why they’ve changed. The functionality and usefulness of task killers is one such advance. A lot has changed in the underlying Android OS regarding how background processes are managed.

Read on to find out why task killers are obsolete, and why that’s actually a good development.

How task killing became dogma

In older versions of Android, memory management was an issue. These phones, like the G1, had too little internal memory for the heavy background processes that many apps chose to run. An app could spawn background services, but never kill them. Even if the app wasn’t doing anything, these services would remain in memory. Over time this led to poor performance and overall system sluggishness.The solution, at the time, was to use task killer apps.

Task killers like Advanced Task Manager and Advanced Task Killer became extremely popular in the Android Market because people saw performance and battery life benefits from ending background services. It was the snowball effect from here on out. Every new Android user was told to go get a task killer first thing when buying a new phone. Some carriers even included them on on phones and recommended them to customers. It became Android dogma that you had to kill tasks.

But starting in Android 2.0, memory management got much, much better. Apps couldn’t spawn processes only to leave them forever. The OS would gauge the level of system RAM, and close unneeded background services. Users on phones like the Droid could clearly tell that this was happening. With only 256MB of RAM, some memory-heavy apps would reliably cause the OS to close other apps running in the background. This is why many apps now use persistent notifications. Having that notification running will keep a background process it is connected to from being ended.

What Froyo changed

When Android 2.2 Froyo was released, users and developers alike noticed something had changed again. Task killers didn’t work properly anymore. If a user closed a particular app, it would just show up again. That’s because the API for closing other tasks was removed. Now the “end” command has basically become “restart”. Only the immediate background app can be closed. Associated services will stay put.

In modern versions of Android, you don’t need to worry about clearing out memory, but this new tweak changed things in a bigger way. This change to the app shutdown API completely alters the risk/reward ratio. If you’re not ending tasks, but rather restarting them, you actually use up more battery trying to free this memory. The apps will just restart, putting additional strain on the system. The only way to completely end a process now is to find it in the Manage Applications area of the Settings app, then tap the Force Stop button. It’s just as destructive as task killing was, but it is more hidden and not accessible via an API.

Google likely changed the API because ending tasks at random can cause system glitches in the worst case. At best, you’ll likely notice worse performance from your apps as they try to reconcile their assigned tasks with the fact that you are constantly interrupting them by ending them.

What you should be doing

We’ve said in the past that the only legitimate use for a task killer is to get rid of processes that go rogue and eat up CPU. A better way to manage that is to actually monitor what’s happening in the background. The app you’ll want for this is called Watchdog. We told you all about it a few weeks ago in a Market Roundup. Check that out for the full rundown.

What Watchdog basically does is poll the CPU to watch for apps that are getting greedy. This is really the holy grail of Android process management. It’s quiet, sits in the background, and solves most of your task management needs. You’ll be alerted if something goes wrong, and then Watchdog will allow you to restart the offending task. While doing this with an app that isn’t misbehaving is a bad idea, you have little choice in cases when an app is legitimately out of control.

Users with root on their device are able to undertake some additional steps to control tasks on Android. An app we really can’t live without on our rooted handsets is called Autostarts. We introduced you to thislast month, but we keep finding reasons to recommend it. Killing processes is a bad thing for system stability and battery life (especially under Froyo), but Autostarts lets you keep unneeded apps from starting up in the first place.

Apps register with the Android OS when they need to start up based on a set of conditions. Autostarts lists all those conditions, so you can tell apps not to start up when they otherwise would. You can still launch them, but they won’t launch themselves. This is perfect for those bundled apps that you use rarely, or simply don’t need. If there’s a lot of crapware on your handset, root users can also remove it completely with an app like Titanium Backup.

Also for root users, is an app called AutoKiller. Don’t let the name fool you; it isn’t an aggressive task killer that’s going to make your apps go all wonky. All it does is tweak the Android process manager to be more aggressive in ending background services. This won’t end tasks midstream, it just ends unneeded apps a little sooner. You mileage may vary, some users find this helps quite a bit, others not so much.

Most users that adopt a more modern way of managing (or not managing) their tasks see a big upside. A phone can feel faster, and the battery may last longer. When it comes down to it, killing tasks is just a hassle you don’t need to deal with anymore. Everyone on Android 2.0 and higher should rely on Watchdog, or an app like it, to monitor for runaway background processes.

As more Android users are bumped up to Froyo, or just buy new devices, they will find their task killers inoperable. It’s important they are steered away from this obsolete method of task management. Tell us about your task killing experiences in the comments.

Who said? Ryan Whitwam said ;).

25 Essential Tweaks to Perform on Your New Android Phone ;).

Get a new Android phone, or planning on getting one soon? There’s a lot you can do with a handset running Google’s mobile OS, and you don’t want to just jump in and peruse the Internet until you properly set up and tweak the phone. After all, user customization is one of Android’s top attributes. Luckily, we’ve got a step-by-step guide for you to get started.

Whether you’re an Android newbie or die-hard enthusiast, you’ll have something to learn from this checklist of the 25 most essential things you ought to do with your new Android phone (Yes, Gingerbread phones included!).

1. Begin with Proper Preparation

Before you get down to using your new Android phone, there are a few things you should get set up. These few basic steps will ensure you have  a smoother experience right from the start. We first suggest you log into your Gmail account on a computer, and get your Google Contacts in shape. These will sync right to the phone, so you want to make sure you have the information you need, and not a lot of people you don’t talk to.

Gmail often adds people to your contacts automatically, so you might have to do a little categorization depending on how you use your account. The My Contacts group is the one that will be displayed in your phone contacts, so put the people you will contact in that group. People can be in more than one group, so don’t fret if you’ve already done some organizing. Also make sure you added phone numbers to the contacts you have them for. It’s just easier to do this on the PC instead of on the phone. Complete this and your contacts will sync down ready to use.

While you’re in Gmail, we’d suggest adding some filters so that you aren’t getting bothered by notifications on your phone so much. One of the nice things about Android is that your Gmail is pushed down to you. But if you get a lot of email, it could get downright annoying. With filters, you can mark certain emails as read as they arrive, so you still have the message, but it doesn’t prompt your phone to alert you. In Gmail, use the Create a Filter link at the very top of the screen. Then simply add the criteria that you’d like filtered. You can use an address, subject, or key words. Click next, then select Mark as Read. There are also a lot of other acrobatics you can do with filters.

Next in your pre-startup prep, we recommend you get a Google Voice account. Sorry to our international readers, but Voice is currently only available in the US. This is a system that gives you a  Google number that can ring multiple phones, transcribes your voicemail, lets you place cheap international calls, and send free SMS messages. Just head over to google.com/voice, and log in with your Google credentials. Google Voice will have you pick a phone number, and activate it via the phone. You can handle the activation after you’ve started using the handset. Read our full Google Voice “getting started guide” here.

2. Set a Pattern or PIN Lock

After powering on your phone, and finishing the Google Voice setup, the first thing you should do is set a pattern or PIN code lock screen. Some users may want to skip this, but if you keep any personal information on your phone, this is a must. From the home screen, go to Menu > Settings > Location and Security. On this screen, scroll down to Set up Screen Lock. You have three options on Android 2.2 and higher: Pattern, PIN, and Password. Older versions only allow Pattern lock. Pick your poison, then input your desired pattern or code. Confirm it, and you’re done. Head back to this menu if you even want to change it.

3. Use Google Voice to Bypass Your Carrier’s Crappy Voicemail Service

If you can get Google Voice, we definitely suggest you do this. Your carrier more than likely has a terrible voicemail system, and Google Voice lets you use their service for voicemails easily. Calls that are not answered on your regular carrier line, will be forwarded to your Google Voice number, where they are picked up by voicemail immediately.

Some phones, like the T-Mobile G2, will ask you about this preference during the setup process. On most handsets, you will have to activate it. From the home screen, go to Menu > Settings > Call Settings >Voicemail Settings. In the resulting popup, select Google Voice as the option. This will change the conditional call forwarding settings automatically. This same menu has manual forwarding options, so you can check to make sure your Google Voice number is listed for all the options.

You can choose to have voicemails forwarded via email, SMS, or just let the Voice app alert you with inbox syncing. We usually go for the last option. But if you are often without data, SMS is more reliable.

4. Manually Install Included Apps

This one will vary by phone, but manufacturers often fail to properly associate included apps with their Android market links. That means they won’t show up in your Android Market downloads list. As such, you won’t know when there are updates. You could be wandering around with an old version of YouTube or Twitter not knowing that there is a newer, more awesome version in the Market.

The fix for this is simple. Just take a look at your included apps, and check the Market to see if they are in your downloads list. If not, search for the app and install it. This will update your version, and forever associate the app with your phone.

5. Create Custom Ringtones and Notifications

Your new Android phone will let you use any sound you like for both ringtones, and notifications. There are two way to get this done, the first will require the use of a free app called Ringdroid. Any MP3 on your SD card can be used to make your sound file. After installing Ringdroid, use it to search the phone for the music or other sound file you want. Once you select one, the app will display a waveform of the track, with sliders so you can pick out the segment you want. Once you have the desired chunk picked out, press the save button at the bottom. Here you can pick a name for the resulting file, and decide if it should show up as a ringtone or a notification.

If you already have a ready-made sound file, you can just place it in a particular spot on the SD card. In the root directory, make two folders: one called ringtones, and one called notifications. You can do this by plugging your phone into a PC and turning on mass storage mode, or use a file browser on the phone itself. Just put your files in the corresponding folder, and the system should recognize it. Whichever method you choose, just go to your main system settings, and open the Sounds submenu. Here you can pick the active ringtones and notifications.

6. Make a Google Navigation Shortcut

One of the great things about Android is that it comes with the free Google Navigation app. This turn-by-turn direction experience has been very solid in our experience, and with just a little work, it can be easier to use. If you often use the Nav system to get to the same places, like home for instance, you can make a home screen shortcut for it.

Long-press on the home screen, then choose Shortcuts. Scroll down and select Directions and Navigation. Fill in the address at the top, then choose what sort of directions you will want; driving, biking, public transit, or walking. Choose a name for the shortcut, and then pick an appropriate icon at the bottom. Tap done, and you have your home screen link. Make sure you test it to make sure Google Maps understood your address.

7. Set Up Social Networking, and  Manually Associate Contacts (If Necessary)

Your new Android phone will most likely come with official Facebook and Twitter apps. Many users will log into these as a matter of course, but we want to draw your attention to one of the functions of these apps. They will sync with your contacts, and while Android is usually very smart about associating contacts correctly, you may notice some links are missing. Luckily, this is easy to fix.

After syncing with your existing contacts, your Contacts list should have the pictures and status updates from people you are friends with on these services. If you notice one is not syncing properly, tap on the entry, and then use Menu > Edit Contact. On this screen, hit Manu again, then pick Join. This will pull up a list of suggested contacts that may be the one you’re looking for.

If you do not see the correct entry, you may have to enable your full contact list. In the main contact view, hit Menu > Display Options, then enable the social networking lists to be shown. Now when in the merge contacts interface, you can hit the Show All Contacts link at the bottom, and pick from your full list. Note, you only have to do this if Android is unable to suggest the right person. This usually happens when someone is using a pseudonym online.

8. Set Flash to On-Demand

Android 2.2 and higher devices have Adobe Flash support in the browser. While it is great to have this option, we recommend leaving the Flash plug-in set to on-demand mode. This will keep it from loading with the rest of the page. Instead of waiting for the Flash content, you get a box with a green arrow in the middle. Tapping this will load up the Flash plug-in. This will make the page loads faster, and still let you enjoy Flash when you need it.

It’s easy to change this setting. In the Browser go to Menu > More > Settings. Scroll down and pick Enable Plug-ins. In the resulting popup, select On-demand. Exit the settings, and you’re done.

9. Add Custom Words to Dictionary

Android lets you have complete control over your user dictionary. This is the part of the system that offers suggestions while you are typing, and may even auto correct some words. If you work in a technical field, or just use a lot of special lingo, you may want to add some words to your user dictionary.

Head to your main system settings (you must know where that is by now). Go to Language and Keyboard, and at the bottom, select User Dictionary. Hit Menu > Add to add new words for the phone’s consideration. Now these words will come up as suggestions while you type, and it will not automatically change them to other similar words without telling you.

You may also add words to the dictionary while you are typing. If you spell something that is unlike something the phone expects, you can add it on the spot. Before hitting the spacebar to move on, you should see the word in the suggestion bar by itself. Tap it once to confirm, then the text “tap again to save” should come up. If you follow that suggestion, and you’re done.

10. Download the Essential Utilities

What good is a smart phone without apps? Here are the apps we think you’re going to need to get up to speed with your new Android phone.

Beautiful Widgets: This is a package of great widgets for your home screen that includes setting toggles, and a series of clock/weather widgets. They are extremely useful, and the clock widgets come in two different sizes to fit your home screen layout. Tapping on the weather icon will show you a full forecast, along with animated weather icons. There are over 50 skins for the weather icons, and over 150 skins for the clock portion. It runs $2.04 in the Market.

Evernote: If you need a note taking app, this is the one to use. Evernote is a cross-platform note taking service with full syncing capability. Take a note on your phone, and it will be uploaded to the cloud so you can access it on the desktop anytime. Anything you add to your Evernote account from a PC will show up in your app. Evernote for Android recently got a full redesign, and it looks great. The account, and app, are free.

Astro: This is a full featured file manager for Android. Navigate your SD card, move and copy files, rename, and delete. All the functions you’d expect are here. The interface is solid, and file browsing/search is snappy. There is a free version with ads, and a full version key will run you $3.99.

Pure Calendar Widget (Agenda): This is a snazzy widget that you can use to display upcoming events on your Google calendars. You have your choice of many sizes and display options. There are also about two dozen skins for it. Pure Calendar Widget will cost about $2.04 in the Market.

Astrid: With Astrid, your phone can easily keep track of, and alert you to upcoming tasks. It is very easy to enter new tasks and set reminders with Astrid. There is an attractive widget that you can have display your to-do list on the home screen as well. You can tag tasks for later sorting, and sync tasks with services like Google Tasks and Producteev. An Astrid Power Pack is available that gives you more widgets, voice input of notes, and voice reminders. Astrid is free, the Power Pack is $3.99.

Awesome Drop: You don’t even have to plug in your phone or set up an account to move files to your phone’s SD card with Awesome Drop. Just launch the app, and go to the Awesome Drop website. Input the code they give you and your phone will pair with the browser. They use a nifty HTML5 implementation to allow you to drag and drop any file into the browser window. The file will be pushed to your phone auto-magically.

11. Download Essential games and Entertainment Apps

Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons: These are both free, ad supported games that every Android user must try. Some low-power phones might have issues running them, but since they’re free, give it a shot. In this game you have to slingshot various types of birds at hastily built structures inhabited by the dastardly pigs that stole your eggs. Take out the pigs to progress. These games are devilishly addictive.

Radiant/Radiant HD: Radiant is a retro space shooter with an attractive visual style. You have a top down view of your craft as you battle space creatures in an effort to avenge the destruction of your planet. Your weapons are upgradeable and there are a few power ups to pick up in-between all the shooting. HVGA phones should grab the regular version for about $1.90, and WVGA phones should pick up Radiant HD for $2.84.

Doom Live Wallpaper: If your phone supports live wallpapers, you will want this. Watch as the Doom guy battles the forces of the underworld on your home screen. Everything from zombies to the Cyberdemon will pop out of the woodwork here. You can drop power ups to help the Doom guy survive, or let him fend for himself. This wallpaper runs great, and it is totally free right now.

Rocket Bunnies: This is a free game on Android that will definitely keep you entertained. The goal is to move the rocket bunny from one planetoid to the next, picking up other bunnies and avoiding traps and evil space spiders. You orbit the globes, and tapping at the right time to slingshot to the next will get you speed bonuses. This is half timed puzzle, half action-platformer. It’s great, but you have to be running Android 2.2 to run it.

Fruit Ninja: This game is simple, but crazy fun. Fruit flies into the air, you slice it up with a swipe of your finger while avoiding the bombs. There are challenges and achievements to be had in this game, but that’s really secondary to the sheer satisfying act of making fruit salad. Fruit Ninja will require a beefy phone, and will cost you $0.99

12. Configure Automatic App Updates

So now that you’ve got all those apps installed, you might want to set some of them to update automatically. This can be a handy feature that keeps you from needing to load up the Market all the time to update apps. They will just update in the background. Be careful about allowing apps that are running crucial background services to update automatically. This can interfere with their functionality. Some examples of this would be Google Voice, or alarm apps.

If you want to turn on auto-updating for an app, go to its page in the Market. Near the top you should see a checkbox for Allow Automatic Updating. Just tap it to enable.

13. Move Apps to the SD card

Depending on the phone you have, this may or may not be an issue. The Nexus S for instance, does not have an SD card, and some phones have plenty of internal storage. But for phones will low amounts of internal flash memory, and those who like to have a lot of apps installed, apps2sd is an essential function. You will, however, need Android 2.2 or higher to use it.

There are a few way to make use of this feature. If you just dive into the settings, you can manually move apps to the SD card. Go to Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage Applications. If you know an app has app2sd functionality built in, find it in this list, then tap on it to open the info page. There will be a button labeled Move to SD Card. This same menu (Manage Apps) can be accessed on Gingerbread through Menu > Manage Apps.

If you don’t fancy doing this the hard way, an app like App 2 SD can help out. This app will list all your apps that have apps2sd built in. Tapping on one will bring up its Application Info page so you can move it. SDMove performs a similar function, although the interface isn’t quite as good. But with its companion app SDWatch, you will get notifications when a new app is installed or updated that supports apps2sd. The notification is a link to the app info page as well.

Depending on the type of app, you might not save too much space. It is the application package that is moved. Configuration data and cache are left on internal storage. Also be aware that widgets cannot be run from the SD card. So you will lose the widgets for any apps you decide to move.

14. Whip your Media Situation into Shape

First, you’re going to need a music player. There are three great options on Android. The first option is DoubleTwist. This is an attractive player with some good features like lock screen controls, and wireless syncing (with a $4.99 add-on). This is especially useful is you use iTunes playlists. Winamp is a smartly designed music player that is a dream to use. It offers wireless sync with the Winamp desktop client, lock screen controls, and a great widget. Finally, there is PowerAmp. This is the most polished music player. The lock screen controls, widget, and UI design are top notch. It even has a graphical equalizer.

We think the choice for most people will come down to Winamp vs. PowerAmp. Winamp is utilitarian and efficiently designed. PowerAmp has a few more features and looks nicer, but is harder to navigate. It also costs $4.99. For a full rundown of the two apps, check here. Conversely, if you just want to stream your tunes, Rhapsody and Napster both have paid subscriptions where you can stream almost any song. Pandora and Last.FM are excellent music streamer as well, but your choice of song is more limited.

In the video department, the choice is clear. Pick up RockPlayer in the Android Market. This app is free with ad support, or you can pay for a single phone license. That runs you $10 and is tied to the handset’s IMEI number. This app can decode almost any file you throw at it. MKV, AVI, MPEG, even WMV all bow down to it.

15. Make a Custom Wallpaper

As you continue customizing you Android phone, why not step away from the included wallpaper, and find your own? There are a few ways to do this. If you have the AppBrain app installed, you can browser the AppBrain wallpaper gallery and have any selection automatically pushed to your phone. These images are saved to your SD card so you can use them at any time without using the AppBrain site.  You can also find ready-made wallpapers at various sites around the web. We like Digital Blasphemy because the proprietor makes all the wallpapers himself. It costs a few bucks for a membership, but some of the wallpapers there are gorgeous.

Even if an image is not perfectly sized, you can still set it as a wallpaper. You just want to look for something with the right proportions. You are not looking to match the resolution of your screen. Android uses wider images to produce that neat scrolling effect you might have noticed. Read up on how to make the perfect Android wallpaper here.

16. Create the Perfect Home Screen Layout

Be sure that you take full advantage of the Android home screen environment. You can place widgets and app shortcuts on any of the screens, but we suggest you try to find a logical layout. Consider organizing content by screen based on its use. Have a screen of system tools like the power control bar and file managers together. Keep games and entertainment apps together on their own screen too. Once you get used to having similar items in a particular place, you can increase your efficiency.

Since the center home screen panel is probably what you’ll see whenever you hit the Home button. Consider treating this like a heads up display where you put the most important information. Maybe a battery meter, Beautiful Widgets Home Weather, or just links to the apps you use the most.

It might be tempting to fill up every available space with flashy widgets, but we would caution you to monitor your home screen performance. Some phones might start to slow down as the home screens fill up. If an app tends to bog down the phone, its widget might bog down the home screen. Watch for laggy scrolling, or slow orientation changes when you open a keyboard (if you have one). For more details on designing a great home screen layout, see our full rundown here.

17. Try Some Alternative Keyboards

If you’re not lucky enough to have the new hot Android multi-touch Gingerbread keyboard, consider testing some of the excellent alternative keyboards in the Android Market, and elsewhere. Before you finish reading this, go sign up for the Swype beta. It is usually closed to new users, but get your name in there so you can get access when they re-open it. With Swype, you just draw a line through all the letters of the word you want, and Swype deciphers it to fill in the word. It’s pretty amazing how well it does figuring out what you are trying to type. Once you’ve gotten accustomed to Swype, your text entry can get insanely fast.

If you want to go more for the conventional keyboard experience, we are really enamored with SwiftKey. This is a standard keyboard, but it has a really excellent learning algorithm that offers up words several characters faster than most alternatives. It recently got  anew high-resolution skin that looks amazing on modern devices. It supports swipe gestures, and has a voice search button. It can also be used to offer text suggestions with a hardware keyboard, which we really appreciate. There is some limited multi-touch built in as well. It doesn’t quite do full chording, but it will recognize new presses if you’re a little slow removing your other thumb. This app will cost you $3.99 in the Market.

These are certainly not the only options. Some users swear by Better Keyboard, which has a huge number of available skins. Smart Keyboard Pro is also a popular choice that is full of options.

18. Upgrade Photos with a New Camera App

There’s nothing wrong with the stock Android camera app. It gets the job done. Same goes for the modified camera apps on most builds of Android. These usually have more options than the stock version, but the Market contains a few apps that can make your pictures much more interesting. There are three apps you should check out. Camera Zoom FX, Vignette, and Camera 360.

Camera Zoom FX has a fair number of features and a ton of cool filter to use. There are free filter packs in the market to add to its repertoire as well. It has some useful options like burst mode and timers. Camera 360 has a fair number of options too, but we like the UI of this app better than most of the competition. It also has a fairly accurate simulated HDR mode.

Vignette has some great image controls and filters built in. It even has a time lapse photography mode. We really like the UI; it is simple, but all the options you need are easily accessible. It seems to take pictures faster than many other apps too. This one is probably our favorite, but all three are great choices to spice up your photography on Android.

19. Check Out Home Screen Replacements

Some manufactures have a habit of tweaking Android just because they can. If your phone came with Sense, Blur, TouchWiz, or even TimeScape, you can hide most of that with a home screen replacement. In our opinion, there are two great options available in the Market: LauncherPro and ADW.

LauncherPro is based on the stock Android 2.1 home screen, but with a lot of new features added in. You can change the launcher links along the bottom to anything you like. Likewise, the number of home screen panels is totally up to you. There is an integrated notification system that can utilize the launcher links to display contextual information. LauncherPro is also very streamlined. It feels extremely fast, and swiping is more fluid than many home experiences phones come with.

Using a pinch gesture on the home screen brings up previews of all your screen like the “Leap” view in Sense. We appreciate little touches like this. Paying for the full version of LauncherPro gets you access to some excellent widgets that very closely approximate the ones from Sense UI. The weird thing is, we actually feel like they might work better. The full version is $2.99, but you have to buy the license through PayPal.

ADW has many of the same features as LauncherPro including smoother scrolling, home screen previews, and a configurable launcher bar. ADW is open source and free. There is support for full skins, many of which might cost a few bucks. However, some of them are surprisingly good quality. We also really like the way adding and removing home screens is handled. You can scroll through them, change the order, and add/remove with a single tap.

There is also a notification system in place here. Developers of apps can add support for information badges on their app icons. For instance, Autokiller shows the amount of available RAM on the icon with ADW. In short, this is another highly configurable home replacement that you should take a look at.

20. Root Your Phone!

This step is optional. We aren’t suggesting that you absolutely should root your new handset. It will technically void your warranty, and could damage the phone. That being said, root access will let you run apps that need low-level system access, or even flash full third-party ROMs on your device.  This is a step for advanced users, but if you really want to tweak your Android phone, rooting is the way to go.

For most phones, there is a simple one click root of some sort. The desktop app SuperOneClick Root is a popular option that works with many phones. Many Sense-running HTC phones can be rooted with the Unrevoked tool. A phone app called x4root can handle a number of phones like the Nexus One, Droid X, and Galaxy S.

You can find our full rundown of current rooting procedures here. The next few steps will be things you can do with root access, so if you’ve decided to forego this for now, just come back to these steps later.

21. Back Up Your Phone (with Root)

Backup options on Android are limited without root. Your contacts, mail, and calendar are all in the Google cloud, so it’s not necessary to worry about these. Your apps will sync back to the phone, and some of them will bring their data with. But this can take time and is an imperfect process. There are a few options for backing up apps and everything else with a rooted Android phone.

Pickup Titanium Backup from the Market. You’ll need to Pro key for this app, which will run you almost $6. But trust us, this app is worth it. You’ll use it in this section of the guide, and in just a bit as well. This app backs up all your apps and the associated data. If you need to get your phone replaced, or you just want to install a new ROM, you can restore this data. Be careful you don’t accidentally restore incompatible stock elements in a custom ROM. Maybe try restoring only your downloaded apps.

If you choose to install custom ROMs on your Android phone, you’re going to need to install a custom recovery on it. The process for this will vary, but many phones can install Clockwork Recovery through an app called ROM Manager. With a custom recovery image, you can do a full image backup of your ROM called a nandroid backup. This is usually an option in the recovery menu, which you access by rebooting the phone with certain buttons held, or with a root app like Quick Boot.

22. Remove Pre-Installed Apps (with Root)

You didn’t ask for a BlockBuster app. Why did Verizon give you one? We call that crapware, and your carrier makes bank from cramming all that irremovable software on your phone. If you’re rooted, it is a simple process to remove those apps. Be aware, on some phones removing these pre-installed apps can interfere with OTA updates. We’ll cover the full removal option here, as well as a safer way to keep crapware out of your hair.

Open up Titanium Backup again. Head over to the Backup/Restore tab, and find the crapware apps you want to banish. Tap on each one, and select Uninstall from the resulting menu. Even pre-installed apps cannot stand up to this app’s root powers. Fair warning though, you can’t remove just anything. Make sure the app in question isn’t required for the phone to work.

If you’re worried about update weirdness, you can also just freeze the apps. This seems to be a common issues with Motorola’s Verizon phones. To freeze the apps instead, go through the same procedure, but pick Freeze instead of uninstall. A Frozen app will not appear in your app list, and does not run in the background. You can go back in and Unfreeze it before any updates happen.

23. Tweak your Task Management for a Faster Phone (with Root)

In general, the only time you need to kill a running app, is if it is causing serious system instability or battery drain (more on that later). Android 2.2 and later does a fine job of managing tasks on its own. If you are rooted, there are a few things you can do to tweak your task management to get a little extra boost though.

The first part of this does not require root access. Pick up Watchdog from the Android Market for $3.49. This app does is poll the CPU to watch for apps that are getting greedy. If an app is crashing out and using up CPU cycles, Watchdog will alert you. You can choose the CPU threshold for notifications as well. Watchdog allows you to kill the offending app, but on Froyo and later, this is just restarting it. To really end the process, go to the Application Settings. That’s in Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage Applications, and go to the Running tab. Tap on the bad app, and hit the Force Stop button. On Gingerbread, this submenu is accessible right from the home screen menu.

With root, you can pick up an app called Autostarts for $0.95. This app is like MSCONFIG for your phone. It pulls up a list of all events that cause apps to start up. Simply open an event to see what apps are triggered by it. You can then tap on them to turn off the start up event for that app only. You can still launch the app, but it won’t start itself. You don’t get any of the instability from killing an app, because it hasn’t started up in the first place.

After that’s done. Get Autokiller, which is free. This app lest you tweak the Android process manager so that it is a bit more aggressive at killing background processes. If you really want to keep things out of memory, you can use the strictest setting, but we feel that is unnecessary. You only need to push it if your phone ships with very little RAM. Checkout our full task management rundown here.

24. Use Location Aware Apps to Automate Your Settings

It sure can be tedious to manage your own settings. If only there was a way for the phone to just know where you are, and manage the settings for you. As it turns out, that’s totally doable. There are a number of apps in the Android Market that can help you out with automating your settings. You might have to spend a few bucks, but the pay off might be worth it.

We’ve been using Locale for a long time to manage our settings. It comes with the ability to control volume, screen brightness, Wi-Fi, and more. You create a series of conditions based on location, time, incoming calls, or even phone orientation. Locale can use plug-ins from the Android Market to add new capabilities. You can get plug-ins that let you control more settings, or that add more trigger conditions. With this app, you can control what your phone does in most situations, but if you want even more control, Tasker might be the way to go.

Tasker is a lot less “on the rails” than Locale is. You are presented with an imposing set of menus for adding new automation profiles. Once you get the hang of the system, you can make you phone do almost anything. Popup a list of music apps when you plug in headphones? Sure. Password protect certain apps? Absolutely. Have your phone read the weather forecast to you every morning after your alarm goes off? Yes, indeed. All it takes is a little practice with the app, or a helpful forum community. Of course, the more mundane Wi-Fi or volume toggle control is possible. What’s better, Takser can use any Locale plug-ins to extend its usefulness.

Maybe you just need a more narrow experience. If volume control is all you desire, checkout FoxyRing. This app will take a reading from the microphone every few minutes to determine the ambient noise level. It will then set your volume to an appropriate level. You can also have it automatically disable your ringer based on location or time.

If you want to totally master automation on Android, have a look at our full article on the subject.

25. Check Your Battery Usage and Optimize Accordingly

Well, it’s been a long strange ride, hasn’t it? By now you will have tweaked and modded every bit of your Android experience. Apps have been installed, and settings altered. Now that all that is done, it’s time for the final test: battery life.Android phones can drain batteries rapidly, but only if you allow them. With a few simple steps, you can make sure your phone isn’t using too much juice.

First up, use the stock Android Battery Use menu. You will find this in the system settings under Status. Battery Use shows you want percent of expended charge has been used by each app. If you see something climbing the list that shouldn’t be there, take note. Similarly, there is another battery monitor menu in Android, but it’s hidden. Grab the free Spare parts app from the Market. In Spare Parts, open Battery History. This will give you a more detailed look at what’s been using your battery. You can also access this menu by typing and “dailing” *#*#4636#*#* in the dialer.

The most important section of battery History, in our opinion, is Partial Wake Usage. Pick that from the top drop down. These are apps and processes that have been keeping your phone from going to sleep. It is normal for some of them to show up. But if you see a third-party app way out in front, that is a problem.

If you are seeing high battery drain, some apps might need to go. You might also want to turn off some features. We caution against going too far. After all, you do want to enjoy the phone’s capabilities. For a full rundown of battery performance tweaks, check our guide here, and use this for some more tips on benchmarking your battery consumption.

Who said? Ryan Whitwam said ;).